Hosiery



Jan, 13, 1953 G. w. WILSON 2,625,028

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ATTORNEYS .G. w. WILSON HOSIERY 2 w Aw Patented Jan. 13, 1953 HOSIERY Grady W. Wilson, Thomasville, N. 0., assignor to Harriss & Covington Hosiery Mills, High Point, N. 0., a corporation of North Carolina Application December 2, 1950, Serial No. 198,830

4 Claims.

This invention relates to hosiery. More specifically, it is concerned with fancy short hose or socks, i. e., with socks whereof the leg portions are embellished by ornamentally-conflgured areas knitted from different or contrastingly colored yarns.

My invention is directed toward the provision of hosiery of the kind referred to in which the leg portions can be expeditiously, and hence economically produced by rotary knitting on circular knitting machines, with incidental formation of laterally-adjacent ornamental areas of diamond or other configurations in horizontal zones, by plating of contrastingly colored yarns individually over the body yarn so that the loops of said yarns will appear at the outer face of the fabric, with the ornamental areas of one color in one zone alternating with corresponding ornamental areas of another color in the next zone.

Other objects and advantages will appear from the following detailed description of the attacheddrawings, wherein: Fig. l is a view in side elevation, of a flattened out fancy sock conveniently embodying my invention.

Fig. 2 is a diagrammatic view in top plan, of the needles of a circular knitting machine showing how a main or body yarn is knitted by all of the needles, while the contr-astingly-colored ornamenting yarns are interknitted in plating relation with the body yarn on variantly selected needles during round and round knitting incident to formation of the leg of the sock; and

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary view of the fabric within the confines of the broken line rectangle III in Fig. 1.

Generally speaking, the sock illustrated by way of example in Fig. 1, is of well known construction, in that it has an upper or leg gripping portion 5 which may be of ribbed fabric or of plain fabric with interlaced elastic; tubular leg and instep portions 6 and i; and heel and toe pockets 8 and 9 fashioned by oscillatory knitting after common practice in the art.

In accordance with my invention, the sock is 2 (Fig. 2) is used throughout the knitting. This body yarn l5, which may be of sand color, is constantly fed to all of the needles I6 eXcept during oscillation of the needle cylinder in fashioning of the heel and toe pockets 8 and 9. During the ornamenting phase of the knitting in the zone A, a green yarn I1 and a red yarn I8 are concurrently fed to variantly selected groups G, G of needles to opposite sides of the plane XX in Fig. 2, so as to be plated over the main yarn and to thus appear at the face of the fabric as shown in Fig. 3, said yarns ll and 3 being floated across the needle cylinder between the end needles of the respective design groups. Starting at the course I9i 9 in Fig. 1, the yarns l1 and iii are first fed, for example, to two needles at diametrically opposite points in the circle centrally of the two groups G, G, for two courses. In the next two courses the yarns l1 and [8 are fed to the pair of needles first selected and to two additional needles at each side of said pair. This procedure is repeated over and over again down to the course 2020, whereupon the number of active needles in the groups G, G is gradually reduced by four in every other course of the knitting. When the course 2|-2| is reached, the yarns I1 and iii are reversed, i. e., the yarn I1 is knit on the needle group G and the yarn [8 on the group G during the formation of the zone B, the needles in said groups being first gradually increased in number down to the course 22-22, and then gradually decreased again until course 23-23 is reached, in exactly the same manner as during the knitting of zone A. If desired, the ornamental areas It), H and l2, l3 in the respective zones A, B may be made to meet, or they may be separated by a few wales as shown in Fig. 1. Furthermore, if desired, the ornamenting yarns employed in the areas I2 and I3 may be of altogether different colors from those used in the areas It! and H. Moreover, the ornamentation may be carried down into the instep of the sock.

In finishing the socks, the floats of the yarns I1 and it are cut fairly close to the inner face of the fabric so that only relatively short ends thereof remain as at Ila, 18a in Fig. 3.

Within the scope of my invention, the ornamenting areas may of course be otherwise configured than shown, as well as varied in size and number, by predetermined selection of the patterning needles in the order required during the knitting, as will be readily understood by those skilled in the art.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

1. A seamless sock or stocking having a leg portion knitted continuously from a main or body yarn, and having zones in which ornamentallyconfigured areas are disposed side by side and formed from loops of different contrastinglycolored second and third yarns knitted in plating relation over the loops of the body yarn at the outer face of the fabric, the ornamental areas in one zone being vertically aligned with the areas in the next adjacent zone, the ornamental area of a subjacent zone corresponding to the ornamental area of the first zone knitted with the second yarn, being plated with the third yarn, and the ornamental area of the subjacent zone corresponding to the ornamental area of the first zone plated with the third yarn, being plated with the second yarn.

2. A seamless sock or stocking, according to claim 1, wherein the ornamental areas in each zone are laterally spaced with loops of the main or body yarn only appearing in the intervening intervals at the outer face of the fabric.

3. A seamless sock or stocking, cliam 1, wherein the ornamental diamond configuration.

4. A seamless sock or stocking, according to claim 1, wherein the ornamental areas are of diamond configuration; and wherein said areas are laterally spaced, with loops of the body yarn only appearing in the intervening intervals at the outer face of the fabric.

according to areas are of GRADY \V. WILSON.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 2,150,773 Lawson et al Mar. 14, 1939 2,217,558 McAdams Oct. 8, 1940 2,287,001 Lawson et al June 16, 1942 2,522,265 Haddad Sept. 12, 1950 

